Against A.I. (or, in theory, players) I'm not opposed to winning by conquest, I just wish that the other victory conditions felt more viable, and, more importantly, that playing out the battles was any fun. When you engage with an enemy force in Elemental you are given the option to auto-resolve the battle, or to engage in a turn-based battle where you can control each of your units individually . Going the latter route brings the player to a screen where they can see a battlefield that's divided into squares. Using their units' and characters' action points, each side takes turns maneuvering and fighting until one side is gone or routed from the field. The turn-based option is mildly interesting if you have a spell caster in the army – as casting can make a huge difference in the outcome – but generally this mode is extremely boring to play through. The only thing you really need to consider in combat is whether your army is bigger, and whether or not it has better armor and weapons. If it is, then you simply hit auto-resolve on every combat and move on to the much cooler empire building aspect of Elemental.

Environments vary, from tundras to desert wastelands.

While the enemy A.I. and battle system are problematic, Elemental has some redeeming qualities that help me partially overlook its problems. Being able to customize your units – outfitting them with the weapons and armor you've researched, giving them mounts, and even editing their name and battle cry – is awesome. I'm a huge nerd, so I can really get into creating my own stories for my army. I also really enjoy the game's use of limited resources, forcing players to compete for things like mines, fertile soil, ancient libraries, and more, as this makes geographical location of cities much more important than it is in other 4X titles. Heck, even the look of the game is charming, as the hand-drawn looking world has an aesthetic that makes the game unique amongst what we're seeing releasing for the PC market as of late.

The Verdict

In the end I have to admit that despite its large number of problems I find Elemental strangely engaging, and I want to keep playing just because I know that someday it's going to become a much better game than it is right now. It really is the damndest thing: even with the instability issues, even with its utter inaccessibility for newcomers to strategy games (and to a large extent, experienced players with anything less than an abundance of patience), I still want to make time to play Elemental. Is this some sort of Stockholm syndrome, I wonder? I doubt it. I think it's just that this is a game with some great ideas that just haven't been implemented as well as they could be. With Stardock's track record of post-release support I'd give it a month, and then you can play the game you should have gotten when they started asking for your money a couple of weeks ago.

5.5PresentationThe game comes with what seems like a detailed instruction booklet, but even between this and the in game tool tips you never get a very good grasp of the more complicated mechanics.

7.5GraphicsI love the style of the game, and the zoom feature works great. It looks good in the cloth map view, but even better if you watch individual citizens doing their daily tasks.

6.5SoundThe voice acting and sound works well enough, but it’s not anything to write home about.

6GameplayDespite being marred early on by a series of technical issues, still not having a multiplayer component, and some bad A.I., Elemental is still pretty addictive; still very unwelcoming to newcomers.

7Lasting AppealIf Stardock continues to support the game as they have their other past efforts than I have little doubt that this will be a game that fans will enjoy for years to come.